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AFP – Sudanese asylum seekers living in Israel fear being kicked out once ties have normalized between the two countries, although some hope their presence is seen as an advantage.
Technically at war with Israel for decades, Sudan on Friday became the third Arab country this year to announce that it is normalizing ties with the Jewish state, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in August.
But after the announcement, members of the Sudanese community in Israel were “very afraid” of being sent back, said Barik Saleh, 26, a Sudanese asylum seeker living south of Tel Aviv.
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Israel has a Sudanese population of around 6,000, mostly asylum seekers.
Thousands of others have left or were forced to return after Sudan’s split in 2011, when South Sudan won its independence, just for the fledgling country to plunge into civil war.
Some Sudanese – often labeled as “infiltrators” for illegally crossing into Israeli territory before obtaining a residence permit – were minors when they arrived. They are not always allowed to work and cannot obtain Israeli citizenship.
Saleh, who grew up in West Darfur, was only nine when his family fled the war in neighboring Chad.
“My parents are in a refugee camp,” said the young man, who arrived after traveling through Libya and Egypt, and has lived in Israel for 13 years.
“I’ll be the first for normalization,” he said. “But if I am deported from here, I will be in 100% danger.”
A Sudanese asylum seeker rides a bicycle on October 25, 2020 in the southern part of Tel Aviv, where thousands of them live. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)
“It’s not safe to go back”
Former President Omar al-Bashir has overseen Sudan’s civil war in the Darfur region since 2003. About 300,000 people have died in the conflict and 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.
Bashir, detained in Khartoum, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
“We are here because it is not yet safe to return to Sudan,” said 31-year-old Monim Haroon, who hails from a region stronghold of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction of Darfur rebel leader Abdelwahid Nour.
“The reason we are here in Israel is not because of the lack of diplomatic relations between Sudan and Israel, but because of the genocide and ethnic cleansing we have suffered,” said Haroon.
Sudan’s transitional government, which was in place after Bashir’s fall in 2019, signed a major peace agreement with an alliance of rebel groups earlier this month, but Nour’s rebel faction was not one of them.
Some of those in power in Sudan today were also in control under Bashir. They include Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, vice president of Sudan’s sovereign transition to power council, which leads the feared Rapid Support Forces, long accused by human rights groups of committing widespread abuses in Sudan’s Darfur provinces.
“It’s very dangerous to me,” said Haroon, who previously headed Nour’s office in Israel. “Unless Abdelwahid signs a peace agreement, I can’t go back.”
‘Second house’
In Neve Shaanan, a Tel Aviv neighborhood known for its community of asylum seekers, stalls and restaurants offer Sudanese food, including a version of the popular ‘phallus’ bean dish, served with grated cheese.
Sudanese asylum seeker and head of the Organization of African Students in Israel Usumain Baraka in an interview in Tel Aviv on 25 October 2020. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)
Usumain Baraka, a smartly dressed 26-year-old who works nearby, completed a master’s degree in public policy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, north of Tel Aviv. Like Saleh, he too was nine when he fled Darfur for Chad, where his mother still lives in a refugee camp.
“They [militiamen] killed my father and my older brother, and they took everything we had in the village, “Baraka said.” At one point I had two options: go back to Darfur to fight for a rebel group, or leave the camp and try to have a normal life “.
While young people AFP spoke to expressed fears that their presence in Israel would be at risk under the normalization agreement, some said they would like the Jewish state to see it as an advantage rather than a burden.
Haroon said the Sudanese in Israel could be a “bridge” between countries, not only in the private sector but also to help build understanding between the two peoples.
“I hope the Israeli government will see this potential advantage, the important role we can play in promoting the interest of the two countries,” he said.
Both Sudan and Israel have said in recent days that migration would be one of the issues on the agenda during upcoming bilateral cooperation meetings.
“Israel is my second home,” asylum seeker Saleh said. “There is no language that I speak better than Hebrew, not even my local language.”
But Jean-Marc Liling, an Israeli lawyer specializing in asylum matters, warned that with the announcement of normalization, the return of Sudanese asylum seekers would likely be on the government’s radar.
“The first thing that comes to the government’s mind is: we will be able to send the ‘infiltrators’ back,” Liling said.
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